a Christian riposte

It is impossible to understand

how you –

with your venerable looks

that betray all those worrisome years

raising four daughters

loving one wife

restoring an old Victorian

planting tulip and daffodil bulbs thoughtfully around trees

to bloom happy colors every spring

tending to a forgetful, 80-year-old father

and the Missouri River flood that

damaged the farm that fed families for generations -

It is impossible to explain

how you –

tightly woven into the patchwork quilt

landscape and the tallgrass prairie

in the heart of the corn belt

have seeped into my achromatic life

like tealeaves transform

water into a steamy elixir,

soothing my apprehensive affections.

Is it impossible to decipher

how the unhurried bonds

that knit two hearts together

have reached beyond the clouds

like redwood titans in the NW corner,

or, like that giant globe of twine

wound layer-by-layer,

tangled piece-by-piece,

an immovable universe born

from a single string?

How letter-by-letter, word-by-word,

a seed became a forest?

Stories exchanged for stories

of wanderlust, family dramas and deaths,

graduations and vacations

over dinners shared,

sometimes lips paired

with passion talks and city walks –

within library walls, museum halls,

or garden paths and hours passed

over treasure maps.

Those, with their slapdash scrutiny

cannot appreciate your exalted beauty

housed within a poetic heart

traveling alongside mine

revealing an immaculate image

of my own complexion

clearer than any reflection shining from

a glassy, pacific pond.

How could they possibly see

how you –

can make me feel

more like me?

contemporary poetry

Blue is black
a dialog without words
buried under
rubbly vowels
chipped mountains
stand letters

Who are you talking to?
it sews itself inside you
says John
line drawings
trains
simplistic like

Do you have a philosophical bend?
past social agreements -
I don't know enough
but
how much do you really know?
how much does anyone know?

a girl
sentimental
not that
giant fart in the room
left by silent assailants

[Inspir]ation

Crumbs in my bed

fallen from my head

that's where I am

not in an attic

nor looking out a window

a hair

a kernel

left behind

reminding me where I live

here

not in total fear

clear that I am mass

plus velocity

plus acceleration

spinning round this plane

framed by four walls

call it what you will

until you see me

here

The sky is clear after the storm. Not much wildlife on the coast today. Waves of cranes fly overhead, and then seagulls appear in flocks of 3 to 13. The occasional bee lands atop the purple wild flowers in full bloom along the unstable Encinitas cliffs. Not much happening in the water, except for birds in the distance swooping down to fish for their lunch. A large boat heads north in the gray distance and a red chopper heads south above the active blue waters. Not a silky silver sea today. No, we have pale blue skies and a vast steeliness to match.

All of this goes on while a war is waged in Libya and thousands grieve for the dead and injured in Japan. The rush of water here is peacefully calm in its natural thunder. I wonder what the big Tsunami sounded like there?

I've struggled to keep this blog active because I'm not very good at concealing my life events from my writing life; they are one and the same. And as any writer knows, our essence always comes out, somehow, in our writing, whether we like it or not. We seem to leak who we are and how we really feel in every form of communication, especially in writing. Many try to hide behind their wit or sarcasm, but experienced eyes can always detect the truth behind the lies.

We'll see how this year's blog posts unfold. For now, all I can promise is to try to remain faithful to this forum that seems to disappear into the ether. However, with my ever increasing need to create an income, my musings tend to be brief. A sad state for me, that's for sure. I could live in the land of poetry forever, but sadly I must emerge too often to attend to the practical aspects of existence, not just the existential.